North River Farms, a densely populated residential development proposed for Oceanside’s dwindling agricultural lands, got another thumbs-down this week from the city’s Planning Commission.

Residents at the crowded meeting Monday evening repeated their concerns about traffic nightmares, wildfire dangers, and the potential for flooding on the 177-acre site along the San Luis Rey River.

The developer, Integral Communities, has built master-planned communities across California, including the Palomar Station apartment complex in San Marcos. The North River Farms project in northeast Oceanside’s Morro Hills would include up to 656 homes, along with a 100-room boutique hotel, retail stores, neighborhood parks and gardens.

About one-third of the property, which straddles North River Road, is within the 100-year flood plain determined by the Federal Emergency Management Association. That land along the river would have to be filled with imported material before development, officials said Monday.

Also, the brush-filled river valley is considered a wildfire danger.

During the December 2017 Lilac fire, which started west of Interstate 15, flames flew down the valley and burned more than 4,000 acres in 12 hours before the Santa Ana winds that pushed them subsided.

Morro Hills was spared. Still, residents throughout the region were told to evacuate their homes, and many spent worrisome hours stuck in traffic.

The commission, which normally has seven members, voted 3-1 to recommend the Oceanside City Council deny the project, possibly next month. The commission’s former chairman, John Scrivener, recently resigned for heath reasons, and two other commissioners, Louise Balma and Robyn Goodkind, recused themselves from Monday’s discussion because of potential conflicts of interest.

Only Commissioner Tom Rosales voted against the panel’s recommendation to oppose the development.

“For me … it comes down to there’s probably no development in that area that makes everybody happy,” Rosales said, and he called the project “visionary.”

Monday’s presentation was a revised version of the project, formerly with almost 1,000 homes, presented to the Planning Commission a year ago. That time, the commission voted unanimously to recommend the City Council deny the project, but the council took no vote and suggested Integral return with revisions.

About 40 people addressed the commission Monday on the issue, with more than two-thirds opposed to it. Most of those who favored the project said it would provide some of the affordable housing so badly needed in the region.

“I want my kids to be able to buy a house close by,” said one resident, a comment heard from several people supporting the project.

“It’s not dense enough,” said Erik Bruvold, CEO of the San Diego North Economic Development Council, adding that homes must be built somewhere.

Yet opponents of the project said most young people living in Oceanside would be unable to afford the homes, some of which would be luxury, single-family residences as large as 3,600 square feet.

Far more speakers raised concerns about traffic, saying most North River Farms residents would have to commute long distances to work. The only access to the development would be from North River Road, part of which the developer would be required to expand from its present two lanes to four.

Integral representatives said they’ve addressed the concerns about density, traffic and fire dangers.

Integral would install three traffic signals, two of which would be on North River Road within the development and the third outside it. The developer also would pay to widen the nearby College Boulevard bridge across the San Luis Rey River from its present four lanes to six lanes.

“The bridge, once widened, would move three times the cars we are adding,” said North River Farms project manager Ninia Hammond.

In all, Integral has agreed to pay for $40 million in off-site improvements such as the bridge, road widening and traffic signals, Hammond said.

Integral also has agreed to build an interim fire station and would pay to equip and staff it, she said. The station would be used until Oceanside eventually builds a permanent station identified in the city’s long-term plan for the area.

The interim station would be staffed by a captain and a firefighter paramedic, Fire Chief Rick Robinson said, in response to concerns expressed by some residents that the station would not provide emergency medical services.

Integral’s website and video presentations emphasize the community gardening and agricultural education aspects of their project. There’s little information about the houses, retail businesses and hotel included in their projects.

“They are just ‘green washing’ this development,” said resident Derek Deviny, noting that he saw no traffic on the streets in the videos.

“It’s a very bad project, and most of the voters don’t want it,” said Leslie Davies, another Oceanside resident.

Planning commissioners pointed out that letters they’ve received opposing the project are individually written by longtime Oceanside residents bringing up specific issues such as traffic and fire hazards. The letters in support are brief, in a generic format, and many are signed by people from out-of-town zip codes.

Commissioner Curt Busk asked for an explanation of how much of the North River Farms site is in the federally-determined flood plain.

Tory Walker, a Vista engineer working on the project, said the southern third of the property is in the flood plain, and it would require the addition of five to 10 feet of fill material before any development.

Much of the flood plain area would be used as a community garden, Walker said.

Commission Chairman Kyle Krahel-Frolander said that, even though the area needs houses, Morro Hills is the wrong place to build them.

“This is not smart growth, and that’s what we really need,” he said.

“To me, it’s the wrong project at the wrong time,” Busk said.

The City Council is tentatively scheduled to consider the North River Farms application at a meeting Feb. 27.